An Apology...

For those of you who were hoping for a story yesterday, I'm very sorry; it never happened.

There are a couple of reasons for this.  Firstly, I managed to damage the ligaments in my wrist and so was typing one-handed for a week. Just getting over it, my arm still strapped up, and helping out the party I support in the local elections, when the candidate from one of the other parties decided to introduce himself, holding out his hand for me to shake. I lifted my injured paw, about to warn him I couldn't, when he grabbed my hand and shook firmly.  Now, I'm normally Crusher Lady with men with strong handshakes, it's a matter of principle, but I couldn't today. All I could do was fold up over my injured hand and whimper. Candidate a little surprised.

'I thought you were wearing gloves!' he said.

'It's a bandage.'

'Ah. Well, you offered...'

'I didn't. I was trying to say I couldn't shake hands because my wrist is damaged...'

'Ah...'

At which point some voters left the polling station, passing us as they did.

'Oh, they're leaving.  Maybe I'll go, too.'

'Good idea.'

He did.

Now, I would love to name and shame, but frankly, I don't care enough about him to know who he is.  All I will say is that he was from the party with the eye-watering combination of colours on its rosette. Now, it might look good on an aquiliegia, but on a grown man it looks, frankly, quite ridiculous.

So my wrist would have healed a bit faster without that, so it's his fault you didn't get a story yesterday, his and the family crisis.

But at least you got an anecdote, 100% true and autobiographical.  You couldn't make it up.

That time of the week again... Monday Story.

I don't know what to give you today.  I wrote a 7K+ short story last weekend that I'm very proud of - but its fanfic and I don't want to push that here as at least one of my followers might be disappointed with it.

Instead, you can have the story I wrote, but did not present at Pudsey Writers last time...

Only it's not a story.  It really did happen.

Oh the shame of it...

Ferry Cross The Mersey, Interrupted.

It begins with sound effects, a reverbing moog crescendo rising in pitch and the drums beat their starting rhythms.  The pitch drops and the opening break demands attention as the bass kicks in. Vocals and lead pick it up, the psychedelia of the synthesiser weaving in, through, around the fills.   

This is the signature song.  This is Hawkwind, and in 1976, they played the Liverpool Empire, and now I can never hear ‘Silver Machine’ without being taken back to the time I was fifteen and stuck on a Mersey Ferry in the middle of the river on a dark October night.

I was there with my friend Lesley from school, my sister Sheila and Little Bugsy. His real name’s Paul.  He had waist length , pale brown hair that rippled down his back , intense, dark eyes and as much of a biker moustache as you can have at the age of seventeen. He had a wicked, delicious smile, and I think we all were a little bit in love with him. Even Sheila, who was 26 and so positively ancient. Even if, of all of us, he was the shortest.

He wore his black leather jacket and his cut-off with an almost piratical swagger and I could never understand why he even deigned to breathe the same air as me.

On the night of the gig we were in The Swan, just back of the venue, (Sheila wanted to use the toilets) and Little Bugsy was in the snug with Kipper and Tramp. He waved me over and gave me his seat, and the dregs of his Newcastle Brown – and put up with Sheila’s simpering after I’d introduced her.

‘How’re youse  gettin’ bach?’ he asked presently.

This was a good question. There were two ways of crossing the River Mersey and getting home to Birkenhead, by ferry, famed in song, or by train. We’d come by Merseyrail – it wasn’t far from my house to Birkenhead North and trains over to Liverpool took less than twenty minutes.  I shrugged, looking to Sheila who was nominally in charge, her being oldest.

‘Cos,’ Little Bugs went on, ‘I could meet youse after the gig an’ we can walk down the Pier Ed together if youse getting’ the ferry.’

I saw my sister’s eyes flick to Bugsy’s slightly older, rather taller pals and she nodded a bit too fast.

‘Yes, good idea, fresh air and everything. Come on, girls, we’d better get to the theatre. It’s quarter past already.’

‘See use lot later, then. Wait out the front for us, ‘kay?’

I nodded and got to my feet, startled when Little Bugsy winked at me, and I followed my sister and my friend out of the pub with a soar of my heart.  It’d take us half an hour longer to get home this way, but all that extra time would be spent with Little Bugsy and, even though Hawkwind were at that time my favourite band, although I’d been looking forward to this gig for months, now I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

The gig passed in a riot of noise and music and adrenalin and, outside, my ears humming and ringing with the aftershock of the sounds, my nerves were jangling – he’d have forgotten, wouldn’t he? Or he’d have gone for a quick drink before setting off and…

He was there, and he grinned that wicked, enchanting smile, and we set off.

There was a bit of jostling for position; Sheila and Lesley both wanted to walk with Little Bugsy, who seemed to want to stay by my side, so we weaved in and out of each other’s paths like four drunkards all the way down to the Pier Head, bought our tickets, and stood around the landing stage waiting for the next ferry.  We could see it, rocking across the river towards us.  I shivered in the cold breeze lifting off the Mersey. It smelled of salt, sky, and diesel.

The ferry docked with a bump against the tractor tyre buffers on the landing stage, the chains on the gangplank rattled and crashed as it lowered, the few passengers making the Birkenhead to Liverpool trip disembarked and we went to board.

There were at least a couple of hundred passengers overall, many dressed in dark leather, suggesting they’d been to the same gig we had, and we wandered round, seeking a fairly empty place to ride out the crossing.  Sheila didn’t fancy the upper deck; it was less sheltered, and we ended up not far from the gangplank, between the saloon and stairwells up to the top deck and the wheelhouse above, and down to the saloon.

I was so busy trying not to try too hard to impress Little Bugsy, that I failed to notice until afterwards how hard he was trying to impress me.  I was aware of his smile, of my sister’s foghorn voice as she tried to sound superior and interesting.  My friend Lesley smoked an illicit cigarette.

Bugsy was standing near the guard rails of the boat, gesturing expansively as he talked about the gig, and his hand knocked against a sign on the bulwark. That was all, just a knock.  The fixings must have been loose, because one end came adrift, and Little Bugsy gave me a beguilingly guilty grin and tried to reattach it.  But then the other end came free and he was left with a warning sign dangling in his hands. About to set it down and casually move away, he jumped when a loud voice yelled down from the wheelhouse above.

‘Oy! You! Vandal! Stay right where you are!’

Well, we all jumped.  And at least two of us swore as we looked around in blind panic. It had been an accident, the ship wasn’t hurt, wouldn’t sink just because a sign fell down, but if you wore a black leather jacket, everyone assumed you were a villain…  What to do?

‘Quick, stand back here,’ Sheila said, getting Lesley and me lined up next to her near the outer wall of the saloon.  We shuffled in as Little Bugsy ducked behind us, just in time as angry feet came down from the wheelhouse and one of the ship’s officers, in full uniform, glowered around the area.

He looked at us, reasonably respectable in jeans and duffle-coats and anoraks, not a biker jacket in sight and we realised with some relief that only Bugsy had been visible from aloft.

‘Where’d he go?’

‘Sorry, who?’

‘That Hell’s Angel that was pulling the boat apart.  Didn’t you see him?’

We shook our heads dumbly; we must have looked suspicious, at least, standing there lined up like three skittles, but there were other people around now, and he went off to question them instead.

We let out a collective sigh of relief, relaxing our positions but keeping close together.

‘Oh, well, we’ll be landing soon,’ Sheila said breezily.  ‘It’ll be fine.’

And then the engines stopped. And a voice over the loudhailer.

‘This is the captain. The ship has suffered an act of vandalism and we are holding position until we find the culprit. We will be underway again just as soon as the vandal is apprehended.  He’s five-three, very long hair, wearing leather jacket and denim waistcoat and was last seen amidships.  Police will be waiting when we dock.’

What were we going to do now?

Bugsy had an idea. ‘Swap coats?’ he said to me. I nodded quickly and stripped off my much-loathed duffle coat.  Bugs pulled his leathers free of the cut off and put it back on over his tee shirt before losing himself in my duffle-coat, keeping his hair inside so that the hood, swathed around his neck, hid the fact that his hair extended down his back. I slid my arms into the leather, torn between delight – it was a high honour to be allowed to wear a biker’s leather – and panic that we would be caught and my duffle-coat would become an accessory before the fact.

It seemed like hours, but could only have been ten minutes or so before the engines started up again with a judder and we were underway once more towards the Birkenhead side of the river.

We bumped against the dock and ropes and hawsers made us fast against the side. The gangplank was lowered and we saw, beyond it, around a dozen policemen waiting.  The ship’s officer who had seen Bugsy’s accident waited at the gangplank, and people were let through only in ones or twos.

Little Bugsy winked at me and flashed that grin again.  ‘See you outside the Woody in ten,’ he said, and melted away into the crowd.  A couple of minutes later, I saw the plaid lining of the hood of my duffle-coat disembarking, and I heaved a sigh of relief.

And we were off the ferry and walking up the covered walkway to Woodside, and out into the bus depot beyond to find a dozen or so black mariahs circling the entrance, police offers in attendance. 

Making our way through the parked vehicles, we headed up the hill to the Woodside Hotel. There, sitting on the wall and swinging his legs, was the cause of all this mayhem.

‘Nice coat,’ he said as he divested himself of my duffle-coat and I handed him back his leathers. ‘Good pockets. See you.’

He gave us a cheerful wave and set off at a loose jog round the corner and off home.

I slid my duffle-coat back on. It was warm and smelled slightly of bike oil and smoke, and somehow, I didn’t hate it quite so much any more.

The Story for Monday - 'Amazing Grace'

Our last prompt for Pudsey Writers was a memory sparked by a piece of music. After discarding many because the memories were too rude, too vague, too personal and too unbelievable, I finally wrote something.

And then something else...

Amazing Grace

It’s funny how easy it can be to get used to things.

My mother had emphysema and always seemed to have a chest infection. She’d been in and out of hospital a few times the previous autumn, and although she’d seemed very poorly each time, still, none of us had any sense of how ill she actually was.  Nobody said.  Perhaps nobody knew.

The thought of death didn’t worry her in the slightest; she was a Spiritualist, and firmly believed death was just the start of it.  And so, in a misguided attempt to prepare me for her future demise, I’d heard all my life about what happened when you died and how you didn’t need to worry about it, but, somehow, I just found these talks traumatising and began to dread the ‘after I’ve gone…’ speeches. It’s a lot to take in, when you’re four, or six, or ten.

She talked about her funeral a lot, too, cheerful soul that she was. She didn’t care what we did with her body – death was just going to be like taking off your coat, apparently – and yet she wanted to be cremated and her ashes scattered at a village where she lived once.

‘Not bloody likely,’ said my Dad.

I grew to adulthood, married and moved away to Leeds, and visited rarely. We didn’t drive and it was too far, too expensive. The list went on, though.  She wanted this hymn, and she wanted that hymn, and she wanted a Spiritualist to take the service.  No tears, no black, lots of bright colours. And if anyone tried to explain to her that this was a bit, well, controlling, she’d glare at them over her folded and point out that it would be her funeral and she would be watching.

And then she heard my husband singing to himself when we were visiting one weekend. She’d never heard such a beautiful voice, and she added him to her list of requirements: Terry was to sing Amazing Grace at her funeral.

The last stage of her illness came one December.  She had a chest infection, and I’d been intending to visit on her birthday on the 15^th, but I had a heavy cold and didn’t want to risk her catching it. Terry went instead, in my place, which delighted her, but I never got to see her.

She died on Christmas day at 4pm.

There were some difficult conversations.  She would be cremated, but my Dad didn’t want her ashes carrying halfway across the country; my mother hadn’t realised, with her long list of wishes, that those of us left behind might have wishes of our own.  My brothers did manage to arrange a Spiritualist for the funeral, but there wouldn’t be time to sing the many hymns she wanted, so they were cut and only Terry’s song would stay.

‘She was joking!’ Dad said.  ‘You can’t make the poor lad get up and sing at a time like that!’

‘She wasn’t joking!’ my sister-in-law said.  ‘She meant it.’

Terry kept quiet until everyone else had finished arguing about it.

‘She did ask me,’ he said.  ‘And I promised.’ 

It wasn’t quite the joyful occasion my mother had so naively expected. We did wear bright colours, and we did cry, because it was a hard thing to do, to let go of this woman who had never, ever let us go, no matter how far away we might be, no matter what we’d done.

And Terry sang Amazing Graze.

At the first note, a quiet fell over the little chapel. His rich, clear tenor filled the space, swept around us, soared and rose to Heaven.  The words of the hymn cradled us and comforted us and gave us space to weep and find solace.  Every word was clear, every phrase was heartfelt, every note was perfect, and by the end of the song there wasn’t a dry eye in the house except for Terry’s.

My husband.  My hero.

* 

Monday Story - 'Fairs Fur'

Hello.

I've been busy working on longer projects lately, and so my output of short stories is not especially brillaint.  I have one to write for Pudsey Writers on Friday, and one for Writers in the Rafters for the following Thursday.

So here is a flash fiction I wrote a while ago for a competition, but which I never entered - Terry didn't like it so much.

See end for notes on the text.

Fair’s Fur

She considered herself fortunate in inheriting from her mother the most stunning collection of furs. Never mind that public opinion, always so fickle, had swung away from the wearing of furs, they were beautiful, they were vintage, and, most importantly of all, they were hers.

Mink, of course, ermine.  Coney and pony.  A fox stole, still with brush attached. Coyote and Chinchilla; each day she reverently removed them from their closets, spread them on the bed and lay on top of them, unclothed, feeling the sensuous delight of soft fur stroking her skin… presently, selecting one, she’d dress herself in it (such a pity she could no longer wear them outside the house; people were so harsh…) and admire her reflection, part-woman, part-animal, all cougar.

Today was special.

She had found it through the internet, and as she tenderly opened the parcel, a sense of near-orgasmic awe overwhelmed her.

‘Leopard, allegedly used for tribal rites,’ the invoice read.

It would make an enchanting rug.

Carrying it up to her sumptuous bedroom, she draped it across her waiting furs. Her fingers traced the dome of its snarling head, continued along its length, drifted off into the mound of furs.

A sudden noise, a growl.

Ridiculous!

But there – guttural, harsh, primal.

The furs stirred. Her fox stole whipped around her neck, the brush thrusting into her throat as she tried to scream, muffling, choking her as she writhed and died staring into the snarling dead eyes of the leopard’s mask.

Please note that I do not advocate or condone any trade in real fur or real fur products.  This story is a work of fiction.